FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Winter Illusions

Roy laughed as he tossed a fireball through a ring of water that his other half, Jonathan, was making. The two were performing their magic act at the Hollywood and Highland Center, a large outdoor shopping mall located quite a bit northwest of their home in Los Angeles.

It was Friday afternoon and four days before Christmas, so they had a massive crowd to entertain. They had camped out in front of the Chinese Theater the week before to make the most out of the premiere of The Hobbit movie, and they had made more money than Jonathan usually made from fixing cars in his garage in a month. Naturally, they were back for the Christmas crowd, and by evening their bottomless collection magician's hat had thousands of dollars inside already, though any normal person would've looked inside and seen nothing.

Roy, a black haired human that was a few years out of college, was happily mated to Jonathan, a green dragon that had a little bit of eastern blood in him. They had become bonded, not just by love, because of a near cataclysmic event that had occurred a few months earlier.

The news reports called it a freak storm fueled by, as usual, some nonsense about El Nino. Several people had died, and there had been millions of dollars worth of damage. A helicopter or two had gone missing, and there had been bodies littered around several particular areas, one of which was around Roy and Jonathan's house. The news had claimed that nearby cemeteries had experienced a sort of explosive pressure differential like how a house with closed windows could lose its roof from internal pressure when hit by a tornado. Similarly, bodies had been subject to the same upheaval from beneath the earth, possibly due to a less than stellar burial.

Roy and Jonathan knew better. The mortal world didn't know the truth, just like how they didn't know how the two magicians performed their tricks. The event had been a ploy by a powerful necromancer to gain limitless power, but they, along with a lion wizard named Leon, had stopped him and, quite humbly, saved the world.

But it hadn't been a walk in the park. Jonathan had been hit with a death curse. In order to save him, Roy gave part of his soul to his mate, tying them together by love and sacrifice. The counter-curse protected them from almost any curse, Leon had explained, but the more separated they were, the more they would suffer from a general sense of pain. They'd even die if they were on the opposite side of the globe.

Since then, the two lovers hadn't gone far from each other, so the pain had never been more than a faint tingle, and that only happened when Jonathan went out to perform alone. But weeks after binding his soul to his mate's, Roy had started exhibiting signs of magic adeptness despite the fact that he had been a regular human before. Leon, an older and very experienced wizard, had expected as much. He had explained that Roy had tapped into Jonathan's well of power, and it created one within the human's spirit: a side effect of the bond they shared.

Leon had since then started tutoring Roy in real magic and, a bit to Jonathan's dismay, the human had shown an aptitude for evocation that the dragon did not have. Jonathan, on the other hand, displayed a skill in enchanting that the lion admitted would easily surpass his own with more training.

Roy was a logical and reasonable being, much more than an average person. He had taken the existence of the supernatural with stride, both out of necessity and out of trust for his beloved dragon. It would've been difficult to come up with a scientifically plausible explanation for a truckload of magically reanimated bodies, and it would've been impossible to ignore said bodies when they were all becoming hood ornaments on his mate's pick-up truck after all.

Roy had wasted no time diving into the magical arts. He, like any normal person, was afraid of what he didn't know, so he took the time to learn. He couldn't learn everything in just a month, of course, but he did train himself enough in magic so that he could at least defend himself from whatever lurked outside the mortal realm.

He guided the fireball between the ring of water that his mate had created, and then he let it hover there while the elements clashed. The crowd, full of all sorts of creatures and folks from all around the globe, watched as the water slowly lost its battle against the small yet resolute sphere of flame.

Jonathan grinned too as the act progressed. He was happy that his mate had so well taken in the reality of the world they lived in. In the beginning, the human could never beat him in a magical wrestling match involving dueling elements, but now he found it difficult to even hold against his overwhelming strength, and the water steamed to express his strain. He had been somewhat dismayed at this progression initially, but he had since laughed at the irony and appreciated that together they were a formidable force in the magical world.

That was not to say that they were as powerful as a former Highguard like Leon. He had been an elite guardian of The Order, a now defunct peacekeeping organization that used to keep, well, order in the supernatural community. They couldn't hold a candle to his ability now, but the lion had assured them that they would surpass him in their respective specializations with time and training: enchantments from Jonathan and evocation from Roy.

When the dragon could no longer maintain the ring of water, he stopped fighting the thirsting flames and let the fluid drop gracefully into an invisible funnel. Before the thin line of water hit the ground, it was transported above the fireball so that the water would sizzle away from the top, making a rather impressive fountain-like flow like one that could be made in Portal.

Roy spread his arms apart as the last of the water was swallowed by his flames, and then the fireball flew up so it could safely grow ten times its original size above the crowd. When it finished growing, the fireball burst into leaping colors as Roy snapped his fingers, and the harmless confetti-like echoes of fire spread all over the crowd as if they were sprinkles dotting over an endless scoop of ice cream.

Jonathan grinned as he watched the children in the audience laugh with glee as they tried to reach for the ethereal flames, and he couldn't help but admire the skill his mate had so quickly acquired in controlling the force he had helped him find in himself.

After the flames dispersed back into the nothingness from which they were created, a bunch of tourists tossed some bills into Jonathan's classic magician hat. The hat sat on the bench they were performing in front of, and it lay on top of a cloak that neither of the magicians was wearing at the moment. The money disappeared when it went inside the hat into a pocket dimension, and the dragon made sure to put it on his head to show them how absolutely gone the money was.

It had been a rule in the Order that money couldn't be conjured with magic. It could be earned by utilizing it like Roy and Jonathan were doing in their alleged magician show, but simply conjuring it from nothing was against the law and considered highly immoral. Using magic to directly convince people to give you money and obey your will was also forbidden, though Jonathan had never thought of doing such a thing. He didn't even need the money from his work at all: his parents were well off, and they had even left him their house when they bought a new one in Florida.

It just felt good to make a living, and he knew Roy wouldn't have been comfortable living off his parents' cash anyway. He had moved in with him after the necromancer incident, but he still held a certain view on independency despite their shared love and home.

The green dragon sighed as he recalled how Roy's parents had reacted when he told them he was moving out. He hadn't actually been there, but Roy had told him that they had simply said what amounted to a disappointed "finally." The man's parents had been strict and disciplined in their parenting style, and it had left no room for affection. Roy had taken a while to warm up to having someone to love and be loved by, but he was now always ready to share his affection, both physically and mentally.

After the last spark of color fizzled away over Jonathan's broken horn, the one he had shattered in a fall while fighting the necromancer, the pair of magicians prepared to perform their next act. They held their hands together, skin against scale, and focused on summoning forth a plate that was actually in the back of Jonathan's pick-up, a Ford F-350 that had seen more than its fair share of zombie guts. Roy had to do most of the metaphorical magical lifting because of the damage Jonathan had suffered from the death curse, though it would heal eventually according to Leon.

A moment later, the flat circular plate appeared on the floor before them with an accompaniment of dazzling smoke. The plate looked much like a normal sewer cover, except there were magical runes painted all over the surface.

Roy stepped onto the plate, and then Jonathan kneeled down so he could provide the little push of willpower that would activate the enchantment on it. The disk started floating above the ground, much to the awe of the audience, and then Roy focused onto its energy to control it. The dragon unfurled his wings, and then he leapt into the air as his mate made the plate fly higher.

Jonathan flew circles around the human until he finally settled two stories above the crowd. The dragon lit his claws with a minor spell, and then he continued swirling around Roy.

Meanwhile, Roy started casting harmless elemental attacks to try and hit the rapidly twisting dragon. It made for a bright and colorful light show, and he became fixed on the disorienting speed at which his mate flew around him.

He was so entranced by the whirling mass of scales that he didn't notice a change in the crowd beneath them. It was subtle at first, but then he could hear the screaming even through the howling winds his mate was stirring around him.

He forced the plate down, and Jonathan stopped flying around, confused with what was happening. He set himself down onto the ground next to Roy, but they had no time to process their surroundings.

The crowd was screaming and fleeing. Panic was never an ideal reaction to something, but Jonathan took hold of his mate and focused. Beyond the wails of terror, he heard something else. Gunshots.

"AK-47," the dragon said. "Still shooting."

"We have to get out of here," Roy replied.

"We have to help."

"Shouldn't we leave this to the cops?"

"Every shot fired is another dead."

Roy nodded firmly. "We have to help."

The dragon picked up the cloak from under his hat and put it on. Two lines of runes ran down vertically on the back, drawn into the fabric, and they glowed as he activated them. "I have to help. I haven't finished making your cloak yet."

"But-"

"But nothing. You have no protection. It'd be suicide if you went in."

"I can't just let you go alone."

Jonathan pulled him into an embrace. His wings shielded them from the chaos around them, and he held the back of the human's head with his clawed hands while he stared into his eyes. "I'll be safe, I promise."

Roy took a deep breath. "Alright."

The dragon pulled away and handed Roy the hat that was on their bench. He grabbed the cloak after the human had run off and melded into the crowd, and he put the heavy grey cloth on.

The cloak slipped through his wings as the enchantments embedded into the cloth sensed them impeding the cloak from being worn, and a hole opened at the base of them to allow the thinner roots of his wings to pass through.

Jonathan leapt up into the air and flew against the direction of the fleeing crowd. There were other winged creatures flying against him, flying away from the source of the gunfire, but he dodged through them, narrowly missing a gryphon that was carrying her baby.

The gun shots stopped for a few seconds, and then they resumed. He pushed through the air faster.

"Damn," he said, "full auto. Assault rifle ban does nothing against people who want to get their hands on them."

The dragon dashed forward, a green streak in the air, and held a claw over his heart when he saw the origin of the rifle shots.

There was one person, a grey wolf, shooting all around him. Bodies were littered in a ring around him. Some were still alive, squirming and screaming. There were others outside of the immediate vicinity of the ring of dead. They didn't seem to have been shot, but Jonathan guessed that they had been trampled by the retreating mob.

He didn't think. He dove down to blindside the wolf, but he saw him approach. The canine unloaded another magazine at him, but the bullets flew harmlessly around him. One of the two lines of inscriptions on the back of his cloak glimmered with magical energy as the power of their enchantment redirected the kinetic energy of the bullets.

The wolf seemed to stutter for a moment, but then he smiled. Jonathan came barreling down the skies to take him out. Before he could take him out, the wolf pulled out a pistol. But he didn't point it at the dragon.

The gunman blew his own brains out, and his furred body slumped to the ground. Confused, Jonathan skimmed over and flew out of the ring of bodies, and then he landed on his feet to help the people that had fallen to the panicked mob. He wanted to help the people that had been shot, but he knew there was little hope of saving him unless EMTs arrived soon: he knew he would've done more harm than good.

But he would try his damned hardest to help the people around them. His conscience told him that leaving the severely wounded was wrong, but his mind knew his efforts would be better spent on people who he could actually help.

He rushed over to a dog who was lying on the floor face up. She had golden fur, but it was ruffled and unswept. Jonathan heard her gasping for breath, and he kneeled over her to try and help her.

"C-can't breathe," she stammered out, her breaths short and labored.

He looked at her throat and guessed that she had been trampled over, and her throat had been stepped on. He didn't know what to do to aid her, so he tried to lift her into a sitting position in the hopes that it would unblock her airway.

It worked. Her breaths were deeper, though they were still not sounding natural. She would be fine for the moment, however. "Wait for paramedics and don't lie down again," he said to her.

She nodded weakly at him before he ran off to help other people.

Jonathan went on to aid others that had been trampled. Most had minor injuries, though some had broken ribs or mangled fingers. Others had been crushed like the dog had been, but they weren't as fortunate: their windpipes had been shut closed to the air, and they had suffocated before the dragon could even do anything to help them.

He sighed when he rolled another furred body over. It had been some sort of feline, though he wasn't sure what specific kind. It was like one of those horrible Black Friday stories, and he couldn't help but wonder how the death toll might have been different if the dense crowd had swarmed the suicidal wolf instead.

He crawled over to another body close by. It was a human with black hair like Roy, though his skin was darker. The man was slumped face down on the ground so he rolled him over.

The dragon choked up when he saw the gunshot wound in the human's heart. Evidently, a stray bullet had found its way further than he would've expected one to fly, especially surprising considering the holiday crowd.

Jonathan felt his stomach crumple in on itself as he imagined his mate's face on the man's body. Then it felt as if someone had bashed a hammer on his skull, and he threw up before fainting from the massive headache.

---

Look at what I've caught this time.

"What?"

A mageling. Perfect.

"Who are you?"

In due time, mageling.

"My head..."

---

There was a sliver of light. Mumbling. Sounds that turned slowly into a voice. A dull headache.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Jonathan opened his eyes. At first there was only a faint creamy blur surrounded by white, but then his vision returned to him. Roy was standing over him, and his brain reconnected with his senses. He felt the bed under his back, and he heard a beeping sound from next to him. He turned his head around to see what it was coming from, and he saw a heartbeat monitor. The white walls told him he was in a hospital room.

"How'd I get here?" he asked.

Roy smiled when he saw that he was fine. "Ambulance, duh. What happened? I felt you were in pain. They told me they found you unconscious, but you didn't have any visible wounds."

The dragon brought a hand up to his forehead and rubbed the scales there. The headache was a dull echo of what it had been, but it was still there and annoying. "I don't know," he replied. "I think I passed out. I have a headache."

"Just passed out? Any idea why? I would think that you'd be able to stomach some dead bodies considering all the not-so-dead ones we dealt with before."

The dragon shook his head, and then he noticed the bags under Roy's eyes. "I don't think it was that. I don't know. What about you? You look terrible."

"I haven't slept. They brought you here yesterday, and I haven't been asleep since."

"I've been out for a whole day?"

"Yeah. It's about noon right now."

"How many?"

"How many what?"

"How many dead?"

"Thirty. Lots more wounded, and you know bullets usually kill."

"Yeah." Jonathan took a deep breath and the drumming in his head relaxed a bit. "Lots of mangled limbs from what I saw. At least it was because they were running for their lives and not for a Black Friday sale."

Roy didn't want to seem heartless, but he chuckled lightly anyway. What happened in shopping mall was too dreary to talk about without sprinkling a bit of ironic humor onto it. "Well," he said, "there was a fox that said you had saved her life."

Jonathan remembered. "Ah, good. Poor girl nearly had her throat crushed, and nobody stopped to help her."

"Good thing you did."

"Yeah. But there were lots of others I couldn't help."

"You can't be a superhero for everyone."

"I wish I could've been. Who was the gunman anyway?"

"Dunno. Male wolf, had been married. Wife committed suicide, from what I hear."

"Damn."

"Too many shootings recently."

"Yeah." The dragon frowned. "Damn. Look, I'm sure I'll be fine. Just get me some Tylenol, I don't need to be here."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

Despite the medical protests from the attending doctor, Roy managed to get him checked out of the hospital. Jonathan took a Tylenol, but it didn't work as well as he'd hoped it would. Regardless, he didn't want to stay at the hospital.

One of the nurses came back in with Jonathan's release papers, and they were allowed to leave. Roy skimmed through the papers out of curiosity and sure enough, the last page was a bill. They had great health insurance though, and the money wasn't really going to be a problem anyway. After all, Jonathan's parents had only moved to Florida because they bought another home there, though the dragon strived to be independent from his parents after they had given him their home in Los Angeles.

Roy helped his mate walk out to their Ford truck. It was a damn huge pick-up, a Super Duty, and it had performed admirably at the task of mowing down zombies a month and a half back. Leon had helped Jonathan toughen it even more since then by painting on some cool looking runes that made the sides of it look like the One Ring. When people asked about the red calligraphy, they usually just said it meant something in an Asian language, and people would usually understand when they saw the Eastern characteristics of Jonathan's otherwise Western draconic body.

The enchanted runes were always a topic of conversation whenever they used the truck for a purpose it was actually designed for: to tow cars for Jonathan's mechanic business. People who were loyal customers trusted him after all, and he offered free tows within LA County if they weren't AAA members or couldn't get their cars to his house themselves.

Today was supposed to be doomsday according to some ancient civilization, and they would've been right if it weren't for Leon, Roy, and Jonathan. The dragon could've sworn the End had come anyway when it had felt like someone had hit his head with a sledgehammer back at the shopping center. The throbbing in his head was a dull echo of that initial pain, but his headache undeniably still hurt, and he was still groggy from waking up. "Can you drive?" he asked.

"Sure," Roy replied.

They got into the pick-up and drove home, though Roy couldn't help but notice the dragon's tightened face straining against his headache. He held his claws over his forehead the entire drive home, but he kept swearing the Tylenol just needed more time to work.

When they got home, they had a quick lunch. Jonathan still felt fatigued from the headache, so he took another dose of Tylenol and went to bed. Roy went to sleep next to him shortly after.

While Jonathan slept, there was the usual blackness of nothingness and the bursts of flashes of dreams and memories. He drifted deeper and deeper into his subconscious mind until he heard a voice.

Hello Jonathan.

The voice sounded cold and somehow cruel, but Jonathan couldn't see anything in the murky darkness. "Hello?" he said back.

You were quite a troublesome one, but that's to be expected.

He tried to slash the darkness away and see who was talking, but his efforts were futile. "What do you mean? Who are you?"

Now now, first let me make you keep those claws to yourself.

Jonathan gasped as he felt cold steel wrap around his wrists and lock them close to his chest. Another pair clamped around his ankles. He flapped his wings in shock, but they too were bound. "What is this? Let me go!"

There was a low rumbling laugh, and then he saw a sliver of light cut through the abyss. The light grew but dimmed as it spread around. He saw that he was in a room, and the faint light showed the brown walls around him. Three of the walls were clean, but the one in front of him was shattered, a man-sized hole broken through it, and the rest of it was textured with grime and dirt. He looked down and saw that he was naked, his heavy balls dangling under his slit.

He shivered as he felt a cold wind blow through the hole in the wall. He saw a shadow pass over the hole, and then he tried to jerk away when he saw the shadow actually become a corporeal being, but then he realized the cuffs around his wrists were chained to the wall behind him.

The shadow creature seemed to flow, and it gave off the illusion of black fur swaying in the wind created from seemingly nothing.

"Hello," it said.

Apprehensive, Jonathan retreated one step back and pressed his spine against the cold wall. He didn't take his eyes off of the creature, however. It was some sort of mental creature, he knew, but he wasn't sure what kind. "What are you?" he asked.

"They call me many names," it replied, and then two glowing slits appeared on what appeared to be its head. They burned blue at first, but then they changed into a shade of yellow. "A shadow, the most simple." It took a long step toward him. "A shadow hunter, more precise." It took another stride and his eyes became orange. "A mind melder, closer." It took one last step and was right up to Jonathan's muzzle. Its eyes flickered and turned red. "A mind horror, by your current catalogues."

Jonathan's eyes widened as he realized the implications of his current situation. A mind horror typically consumed the spirit of its prey, and this one had already broken through his mental defenses. Wizards and other magically talented people could resist such a mental intrusion, but he was not a full-fledged wizard, not even close yet.

The creature sensed the sudden spike in fear coming from its prey, and it chuckled. "That's right, mageling. At first I was intending to simply hide in your mind until I could jump to my next victim, but then lo and behold, I hit the jackpot."

"I wasn't a fully trained mage. You found a buffet."

"That's right. Your mental firewalls were stronger than an average person's, but they weren't impossible to break through." The shadow seemed to hunch forward, and then a small sliver of red appeared where its mouth might've been. Jonathan guessed it was grinning. "Now I'm going to feast. Not a full mage, perhaps, but you have denser spirit energy than a hundred mortals combined."

Jonathan tried to retreat again, but the chains kept him against the wall. With his option of flight eliminated, he chose to fight. With his hands restrained, he could only conjure a small ball of fire. It sparked onto the shadow's pseudo-fur but fizzled harmlessly.

It laughed again, and then it said, "I shall enjoy this."

Its mouth descended towards the dragon's claws, and then it swallowed them. Jonathan looked down wide-eyed at what was happening. He could see his fingers through the transparent shadow, blurred by a shade of black, and he knew the creature would eat him little by little. It would be agonizing, from what he knew, and he wouldn't die until the very last piece of his spirit was consumed.

He knew now where he was. He was in his own mind, trapped by the mind horror. His body in his mind only represented his spirit, and his body would be left unharmed outside his mind. He understood what the mind horror did. It had done it with the wolf. It had done it with his wife. It had done it with all his previous victims. It would devour his spirit like it had done with the others, and then it would take over his body. It would destroy his body and make it look like a suicide, and then it'd move on to its next victim.

The horror went on a shooting rampage because the wolf had no children. His wife was already dead. There were no more potential victims in his household. He needed to jump to another person out in the public.

It would swallow him up and do the same to his body. But there was still another person in his house.

He couldn't let it touch his mate.

The creature made a mumbling noise as it suckled on one of his fingers. It almost sounded like frustration, but Jonathan wasn't sure: the horror was not a person after all.

Then it released his fingers and backed away, its eyes narrowed and glowing bright. "What is this?" it asked.

"What? Not to your tastes?"

It growled. "Something else is protecting you." It extended an appendage out of its shadowy blob and rubbed its black incorporeal furs along Jonathan's body.

He felt it press physically against his chest and into the crevice between his two large chest scale plates. It slid down to the first scute under them, and then it brushed its hand against it. He stared down and saw a symbol appear on his thick scale, and it hummed with a gentle glow.

"Well," the shadow said, "this will be problematic." Its head dunk under his head and made a sniffing sound, soaking in the scent from his neck. "But it's been so long since I've had a mageling to gorge on. No matter. I only have to make you surrender yourself to me."

Jonathan kicked his feet at the creature, but it passed right through the partially transparent blob. Evidently it had the power to become physical and touch when it wanted to, but he supposed that had to be true since it was manipulating his mind. "And why," he asked, "would I ever do that?"

It grinned again, and the eyes it made from a red slash of light narrowed. "I am not called a mind horror without a reason, mageling. I shall break you before long."

"I won't let you win."

"That's what they all say. The ones that try to resist even after I've broken their firewalls. They all become my meals." It backed away and growled lowly. "Now, I wonder what will be the key to your submission?" The creature morphed as it thought, and then its amorphous form gained a solid color.

Jonathan felt apprehensive but curious, and he wondered what the mind horror was doing. It didn't take long for him to see, however.

The creature had changed its appearance. It was a human now, and not just any human.

The horror smiled devilishly, its - now his - lips filling with color that swallowed away the black base. "Perhaps," the impersonator of Roy said, "a mind fuck is in order."

He snapped his fingers, and then the direction of gravity shifted. Jonathan suddenly found himself lying on his back, the cuff chains still holding him in place, and he saw the illusion of Roy simply phase from his original position to an upright position several steps below him. He peered down and gasped when he saw what the creature was planning.

"You're not him," Jonathan said. "You're not Roy. I know what you're trying to do, and I won't let you get me like that."

"Mm," the mind horror replied, "people are ever so resistant. But your will shall weather away like a stone that dares oppose an endless assault of water."

The dragon turned his head to one side. "You can't harm me. I know you're a fake, an illusion."

The image of Roy took a step forward. "Reality is what an observer perceives. What you see is limited. Limited wavelengths. You hear a limited range of frequencies. For you, reality is that a fire truck is red. To a color blind person, that fire truck is not red. If what you perceive here is seems and feels real, then it might as well be. It will be a philosophy you will embrace with time."

Jonathan spat at his general direction. "Do your worst."

The mind horror laughed with a shriek-like cackle, and it echoed in Jonathan's head as a reminder that it wasn't his mate. It came up to his tail, and he saw the creature had given himself a monstrously large penis that should've drained the blood of any actual living being that possessed such a thing enough that they'd suffer from hypoxia, and there was an equally impressive engorged set of balls beneath the unnaturally bobbing cock.

He whipped his tail at the imposter, but it was a futile gesture. The green appendage passed harmlessly through his body, the old translucent shadow underneath appearing for just a moment where he struck.

"Don't waste your energy," it said. "I have almost complete control of your mind now. You only cling to your soul, and that will also be mine in due time."

Jonathan jerked his hands a bit, testing the chains. It said that it had almost complete control, so he tried to break free. He knew it was right. He knew he would break with time. He wasn't sure he could outlast it until it starved. He needed to get help.

With a massive burst of will, the dragon forced his arms, wings, and legs away with all the mental will he could muster, his will represented by the strain of the muscles in the embodiment of his spirit.

He heard a metallic clang, and then there was freedom. His vision flashed, and he found himself back in his room in his house with his real mate sleeping next to him on their bed.

He gasped for a breath, sat up, and then he yelled, "Roy!"

The human woke right up and tossed around the bed. "Jon," he said with hint of panic, "what is it?"

"Get Leon, don't ask why, just do it! I don't have much ti-"

He roared as the headache came back, nearly as intense as it was the first time. He shut his eyes and fell right back onto the bed, his head slanted against his pillow on the side of his broken horn.

The pain drifted away, and when he reopened his eyes he was in his mind's room again. The chains were back, tightened on his wrist cuffs and thicker than before.

He looked around and saw the fake Roy standing in the same place as he was before, his feet right near the tip of his tail.

"Hum," the creature said, "I underestimated you. It's been a long time since I've had prey that fought back. Rest assured, you won't break free again. Now then, where were we?" It rubbed its giant cock and grinned. "Ah, yes."

Jonathan looked at it, eyes wide with trepidation. The creature was still sane, at least, and the cock wasn't so large that it would be impossible to fit. It was, nonetheless, immense and was sure to be painful.

The fake human fell on top of him, and he felt all the texture of the real Roy: smooth skin, light bulges of muscle, and warm body heat. It all threatened to break his will, but he wouldn't surrender so easily.

The dragon tucked his tail in to block access to his hole, but the only response he got was a deep sigh. The same cold feeling around his wrists gripped the end of his tail and pulled it down to the ground, leaving him entirely exposed for the creature's dirty deeds. He shut his eyes so he wouldn't have to see anything.

There wasn't even a hint of warning, only sudden pressure at the base of his tail. He felt the massive human-shaped cock bury into his un-lubed rear, but there was oddly little pain. He opened an eye to see what was happening, and he saw a whitish glow at the edge of his vision. The symbol of Roy's bond with him right under his chest lit up like a Christmas light, and he heard the impersonator scoff.

"Well," it said, "you're just full of surprises aren't you? I can't even force you to suffer pain, bah. Not the case for pleasure, at least."

Jonathan simply responded, "Fuck you."

"You're clearly misinterpreting the situation here, mageling. I'm the one that's fucking you, dragon."

And that it did. It fucked him hard, raw, and with reckless abandon. It didn't matter how rough it was since the bond protected him from most of the pain, so naturally the beast went as rough as it liked.

Jonathan had no doubt he would be backed against a corner of a wall if it weren't for the chains holding him in place. Even then, he could hear them rattle and strain from the force of being thrust upon, his hole being torn apart by the horror's imaginary cock.

It disgusted him. It disgusted him how he could do nothing against the wretched creature that was ravaging his very soul, and it was doing it while taking on the form of his lover.

He wouldn't let it get what it wanted. He resisted the tiny sparks of pleasure that threatened to grant him arousal, and he kept his member inside his slit despite the savage ass-beating he was receiving. He kept it soft and withdrawn even when he felt the creature morph its cock so that it became some other species' shape and would dig hard against his prostrate. He blocked it all out successfully: a stone wall shaped in his mind blocked out all the pleasure and lust.

When it became clear to the beast that he was not succumbing to his desires, its growls of ecstasy turned into ones of frustration, angry and bitter. It wasn't going to have wasted all this time. It was going to feed on the dragon one way or another.

Even though it was angry that its greater goal was not being fulfilled, it still took pleasure from mind raping the not-so-helpless dragon. The sexual domination satisfied the horror for the short term, and he had to admit that the dragon was intensely attractive for a mortal. He would've made a nice host for a shadow parasite, it thought, but it was a hunter. Feeding on him would be so much more gratifying than using him.

The protective mark he had confused him, however. It was an enchantment that required great sacrifice from another, it knew, but it didn't know why the dragon would have one. Regardless, it was a nuisance. It hadn't bothered digging into his memories yet, aside from a few surface ones, but it knew it had to if the dragon was so indomitable.

The human would be next. It would eat all of the dragon's spirit except for his head, just so he could watch while he broke and feasted on the human that was so dear to him.

But for now, the sexual gratification was enough to appetize on. It fucked him, harder and harder, until it was near release. It shaped its human nails into fierce claws and dug them into the dragon's scales, but the protective bond prevented it from actually harming him.

Regardless, it howled inhumanly, giving Jonathan an unneeded reminder that what was above him wasn't Roy, and it came, pumping white liquid into the dragon's tailhole. The creature made it feel like it was filling him full of its burning cum, its back arched and its human skin rippling and phasing partly with its shadowy furs as intense pleasure washed over it.

Jonathan ignored the feelings in his rear, difficult as it was. He felt his insides overflow with the cursed thing's filth, and it started splattering all over his butt and the base of his tail. He felt the cock inside him continue to throb as it kept injecting its contents into him, but then he felt it pull out while still pulsing as hard as it had when it had started cumming inside him.

It wasn't done. He felt warmth and stickiness wash over him as the creature kept cumming an endless torrent of seed. He felt the liquid drip and slide into the crevices of his scales, and it left him feeling tainted and foul.

When all was said and done, the poor dragon looked as if no less than a dozen fertile men had unleashed their seed onto his body. Cum dribbled off his belly and chest, splattered into pools, and even more poured out of his tail hole.

Yet despite it all, he had kept his arousal under control.

Sensing the dragon's satisfaction, the mind horror, still guised as Roy, said, "Don't think you've won yet. I still control most of your mind. Cum."

Jonathan let out a loud gasp and arched his back as much as he could as a sudden spike of pleasure shot up from the tip of his tail. It traveled up to his lower back, and then it went straight to the base of his penis before forcing it to erupt.

His shaft hadn't even emerged from his slit, yet his hefty balls pulled closer to his body and pumped out his seed anyway. It squirted out from all around his fleshy opening, melding with the disgusting cum already on him.

The mind horror knew it wasn't the same as making him cum during sex, but it was still a consolation and a reminder that he was doomed to yield eventually.

Jonathan growled after his forced orgasm faded. "This is all still an illusion. You've failed." The symbol on his belly scale lit up brightly again, and all of the cum on his body faded, dispelling the illusion. "Be gone."

The mind horror smiled. "Like water on rock, dear mageling. I shall find the hammer that will break you."

With that, it disappeared into the recesses of his mind, leaving Jonathan trapped. He prayed that Roy and Leon would figure out what had happened to him.

---

As a matter of fact, they did. Leon performed the same sight spell that had revealed the location of the necromancer a month and a half ago, and it had shown them the black cloud around Jonathan's head. Leon, being one of the Highguard, a renowned member of the Order, had seen such a creature before and knew exactly what to do. He had to get the dragon to his house to deal with the mind horror since his home had a lot of residual magic around it. In fact, the lion liked to sleep in his gun store more than his home because of the thickness of the magical energy that flooded his house, the leftover power created by decades of living there and performing magical spells and experiments.

Although Jonathan seemed like a lithe dragon, his muscles were dense and hid his true strength. It made it difficult to get him into the lion's car: he was heavy to carry downstairs, and then they couldn't get his wings folded in right to get him inside the car so they decided to put him in the back of the Ford instead. They put a tied down cloth over him and hoped nobody would see that there was anyone back there: a police interrogation was not something they could afford time to explain. Teleportation was not an option since it would require the spell to move the mind feeder, and that would've alerted it to outside interference.

They drove. It was getting late in the day, so the commute was slow everywhere in Los Angeles. The sun was approaching the horizon, and time was ticking. Roy was worried as hell since he could feel his mate's apprehension, but he also sensed his defiance. As long as that adamant resistance was still there, Jonathan was safe, according to Leon.

But by the time they reached the lion's home, Roy felt a horrible sense of guilt, sadness, and pain from his mate. The feelings transferred over their invisible bond, but he didn't know what was causing the melancholic mixture of feelings; he only knew that they were there and they were eroding his defiance at an alarming rate.

"I need to set up a trap for the thing," Leon said once they were in his living room. "Otherwise it'll just flee into one of us and hide until it finds easier prey. Your link with him will make this part easier."

"What do I need to do?" Roy asked.

Leon grabbed a sword hilt that was hanging by his fireplace mantle. "Take this."

The human took the hilt, but his eyes flickered with confusion. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"It's an astral blade," Leon explained. "The blade doesn't affect things in our reality, our dimension so-to-speak. That's why you can't see the blade. It'll hit things like ghosts, inter-dimensional beings, phased wizards, and all sorts of mind critters."

Roy stared at the rather uninteresting hilt. "Okay. So can I just swing it across his head and kill the blasted thing?"

The lion shook his head. "No. It's inside his head now. The black stuff outside is sort of like engine exhaust, except it signifies that it's been chugging along inside doing who knows what with his thoughts. We need to get you inside."

Roy swung the hilt and felt its weightlessness. "And what exactly does that mean?"

"You're already deeply linked with him through the bond. I'll cast a spell to send you and the blade into his mind. I would go myself, but it would take much longer. Instead, I'll extract the creature out into the trap from the outside. Fight the horror inside his inner world with the blade. Hold it at bay until I finish my spells."

Roy's eyes flickered with apprehension. "I'm not a fantastic fencer, you know. I only trained in swordplay a bit in college. And only enough to finish my physical education requirement."

"You're not fighting another swordsman, luckily. It'll appear as a shadow, but the sword can hit it. It might try to change shape. Don't be afraid. Keep it distracted."

"I'll try. For Jon."

The lion nodded, shut his eyes, and began mumbling arcane words while a circle formed around Jonathan's body.

---

The walls had turned into windows to the past. Jonathan's vision focused on the ceiling, ignoring the seemingly random memories playing on the other walls. They weren't completely random, however, as he knew they were reaching backwards from the present; new memories made way for older ones.

He saw his graduation. His college acceptance letter. Images from high school. One of his best friends, a doe with horns fancier than a typical eastern dragon's. She was the only one that knew he was gay back then, and that was only because she had wanted to become his girlfriend. It didn't happen, but she remained his best friend. He kept in contact even now, but he didn't have much time to think of her: the memories kept digging further and further backwards in time.

Middle school. Sixth grade. Then the memories slowed. He knew what the creature would find, and he was not at all ready to confront it.

As if sensing his thoughts, the walls stopped screening his past and returned to the bland form they were before. The shadow sunk through the hole in one of them and snarled at him.

It was holding a box. A chained box with a hard lock.

"Well," it said, "I wonder what's in here? People don't usually lock away memories unless they're particularly uncomfortable."

Jonathan's eyes twitched. "You'll find nothing," he said.

"We'll see."

A limb grew out of the shadow, complete with a hand and fingers. It shoved a finger into the lock, feeling it, and then it clicked. The chains fell and shattered into nothingness, and Jonathan felt his heart nearly burst at the tension.

It opened the box, its thin translucent hands holding it like it was a delicate flower. It looked inside, and the eerie light that was its mouth shaped into a wide crescent grin.

Without any warning, the light was sucked out of the room through the hole it broke through. It cackled, its sound a deep echo, and the ceiling filled with light and motion as the unlocked memory started to play.

Jonathan didn't want to look at it. He'd gotten over it after many screwed up years, but he knew he had never really come to terms with what had happened that day, all the way back when he was twelve years old. He had just buried it away, suppressing the memories and guilt until time had driven it into the deepest parts of his subconscious mind.

Now it was back, and he couldn't shut his eyes. He might've been able to if he tried, but the sound was vivid enough to make him see anyway.

"If," he heard its voice echo, "you will not submit from humiliation, then perhaps this will do."

He saw the streets of Los Angeles, skyscrapers all around him. The ceiling slowly approached him, threatening to crush him, but then he found himself in the memory itself, unchained in his own body, yet he could not alter his movements.

The sights and sounds were all there. Cars were zooming by, whooshing through the light traffic, and there were all sorts of people walking around the streets. As usual, the skies of the major metropolis were empty, a limit placed on people that were blessed with wings, for alleged terrorism prevention purposes.

And there he was. A little dragon with scales a bit brighter than his own. He was four years younger than he was. He was his brother. He was alive, breathing, and as clear and vivid as he could ever remember. This was the memory he feared to return to.

He couldn't alter the memory, his body rejecting his mind's demands to move. It followed the motions he performed that day over a decade ago, and his mouth wouldn't open to let out his desperate need to warn someone, anyone.

He tried to calm himself. It was just a memory, nothing more. But why did it hurt so much? The wound hooked into his heart again after so many years, and he helplessly watched as the scene unfolded exactly as he had remembered it, unburied thanks to the wretched mind horror.

He watched as he walked with his little brother through the streets of the city. Their parents had let them go wander around the shops all by themselves, a remarkable achievement for their age. It had been an achievement that went without celebration.

He had to keep watching his little brother because he had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. He had a thing for small shiny objects, and he'd often ignore everything else to try and touch one. It wouldn't have been such a terribly bad problem if it weren't for the fact that his little brother had an incredible knack for spotting such objects.

He looked away for only a second to look at the display for the toy store they were walking past. That was all it took.

His little brother dashed off to the street, a little green blur as he turned his head back to see him. He leapt towards him, but it was too late. He'd dashed onto the street, reaching for a quarter he spotted on the road, but traffic was light. It wasn't the car's fault. Nobody could've expected someone to just jump onto the road like that.

The next thing he knew, his little brother was on the cold concrete, his wings twisted and bloodied. Traffic stopped. He looked around. People gawked and stared, their faces horrified. Time seemed to stretch.

Jonathan tried to tell himself that it was just a memory. But it really had happened, and he was watching it again. The pain of reliving it was real. He thought he'd gotten past it, but here it was again, clawing at his heart.

He wanted to curl up and cry, but he was still trapped in the play-through of the memory. People stood, gawking, and he screamed just like he remembered he did: he grabbed one of the dumbstruck pedestrians and yelled at them to dial 911 before running to his brother.

The lion in the car that hit his brother came rushing out and tried to save him. He remembered seeing a little spark of blue flash around his paws as he checked his pulse. He didn't know it then, but Leon had told him after what it was.

That was their first meeting. The lion mage had tried to save his brother's life by forging the same life-bond that had saved his own from a necromancer's curse, but it was already too late. The impact from the car had killed him before any help could come.

Leon had told him that was the day his magic awakened. While he had grieved, slumped over his little brother's body, he said that he had felt the gift reveal itself in him as raw power humming in ambivalence. Grief, fear, sadness, and low sense of anger had caused the air around him to heat up to the point that Leon had to actively cool it down.

The lion would be a mentor for the rest of his life, but he didn't know it then. He was indifferent to him then, and he hadn't blamed him for killing his little brother. He blamed himself. He should've been watching him.

The memory flashed, and he found himself holding his brother's hand with their parents in front of them.

His mother, a bright green dragon with scales like emeralds, said to him, "Keep an eye on your little brother, alright?"

"Yes mom," he replied.

Another flash and he was home again, his mother in front of him but his brother gone.

She was tearing up, and he felt water running down his own pebbly cheeks. "It's not your fault," she told him.

But it was. It took him a long time to convince himself that it wasn't. He wasn't sure he ever did. He simply stopped thinking about it after enough time had passed.

The mind horror dug back those thoughts, those memories, and he couldn't face it again without breaking down.

The memory changed again, and this time he was surrounded by family. They were on grass. They were burying his little brother.

He couldn't watch. The funeral played through just as he remembered it, but he was too heartbroken to listen to his parents' weeping or look at the casket as it lowered into the earth.

He was vaguely aware of when the dirt had been packed. He moved and hunched over the gravestone, his body forcing him to read the inscription. Tyler Dracen, loving son and brother.

When he looked back up, he saw everyone fade away, vanishing back into his memories. He could move his limbs again, but the only place he went was to his knees.

Someone appeared in front of him. It was an image of his little brother. He knew it wasn't really him, but he was too hurt to care whether or not it was a fake.

"Jon," he said. "Why'd you let me die?"

Jonathan couldn't lift his head up to look at him - it - in the face. Gods, he knew what it was doing, but that didn't make the pain or the sadness go away. "Go away," he said, his voice strained.

"You should've held on to me," it replied.

"You were a big boy. You didn't want me to hold your hand."

"You shouldn't have been distracted by that Nintendo."

"I-I don't-I-"

"You let me die."

Its voice echoed, emphasizing its message. Then the gravestone and the grass disappeared, only to be replaced by concrete and his little brother's broken body.

Jonathan collapsed into a sobbing mess, mewling on the ground without any strength left. "Please," he whimpered, "s-stop, just stop, please."

The mind horror threw off its guise and turned back into the shadow it was before, its lighted grin widening with satisfaction. To it, Jonathan had been a resistant prey. The memory it found meant nothing to it. It had only been useful in finding a way to shatter his last defense. To make his prey surrender to it.

The glow on Jonathan's belly mark dimmed, its protection dying, and the shadow wasted no time to begin feasting. Before it enveloped itself around the dragon's arm again, however, it whispered one last thing to him. "I'll make it stop. Permanently."

The creature's shadowy tendrils surrounded his left arm, engulfing it in darkness. The slit of light that was its mouth disappeared, and then Jonathan felt a suckling sensation all over his lower limb. He was afraid, his heart was heavy, and he could barely see straight through the horrible memories he had locked away so long ago. He hadn't the ability to even whisper out a small bark of defiance as the horror dined on his spirit.

But then the suckling stopped. The memory faded, and he was in the same bland walled room as before, tied and restrained. The shadow retreated, and its eye-lights slanted with reddish flame at him.

"What is this?" it asked. "You're a mage, but your spirit isn't even twice as dense as a regular mortal's. What trickery is this?"

Jonathan could guess why. The bond he bore was the result of the ultimate show of sacrifice and devotion his mate could give him, and it alone was the only reason he yet breathed. It had saved his spirit from being obliterated by a powerful death curse, and he knew that he couldn't have healed from such a terrible attack so quickly.

Leon had assured him that he would heal eventually, but it would take many years for his spirit to become whole again. In the meantime, his magical reserve of energy was stagnated, and though he could become more skilled in enchanting than the powerful lion mage, he would have to take days to empower a large and complicated enchantment, and he couldn't churn out minor ones like a factory.

That inner damage to his spirit seemed like it was working for him now, however. His defiance had been trampled to a tiny spark, but it flared a little, enough to overcome his debilitating emotions. A minor victory, but he still gloated, "Didn't get what you wanted, huh? Too bad. Necromancer had first dibs already."

The shadow growled and crept over his body, blackening his green scales. Its eyes took shape right above his eyes. They blazed with fury, annoyed but not deterred. "You," it said, "I'll make the time you've made me waste on you worth it. I'll swallow you up until only your head remains, and I'll tear out your throat. Then I'll go for your precious human. I'll break him. Once I devour his soul, I'll make you watch as I take over his body and make him shoot himself right in front of you. I'll make sure his squishy brain bits splash all over your useless body. And then I'll come back and finish you, you miserable whelp."

Fear and terrible trepidation squashed that spark of defiance, and this time it wasn't coming back. The dragon remained quiet, each breath forced through terror and hurt. He only barely acknowledged the warmth leaving his left arm, the horror swallowing it up with an annoyed fervor.

After a few minutes, his eyes told him the whole arm was gone. The shadow moved over to his right arm, preparing to devour it next. He shut his eyes, submitting to his fate.

But then a familiar voice rang through his ears.

"Get away from him," he heard Roy yell out, his voice commanding and protective.

He opened his eyes and saw his mate standing a cautious distance away from them, a sword with a glowing purple blade threateningly pointed at the ravenous beast by his side.

The sword was ethereal and translucent, its opacity almost the same as the horror's shadow form. Jonathan managed a weak smile on his muzzle as hope hummed with the glow from the blade. He'd barely managed to get two sentences out to Roy, but he was glad it'd been enough for him to summon help immediately. The weapon could've only come from Leon, and they'd managed to rescue him before he lost more of his soul.

The shadow released his released him and turned to face the intruder. Its eye slits narrowed, and their lights changed into a sickly yellow hue. It snarled and said, "Impossible. He only escaped for less than five seconds."

"You will not touch him again," Roy said, "or anyone else."

Its only response was a deep growl. It dropped onto all fours, morphing into some sort of shadowy beast, and crept towards Roy, the flowing fur-like darkness pointed longer and sharper like a porcupine's spines.

Roy stood fast, his sword grip firm. He was afraid, but he wouldn't let any emotion show on his face. It took a few more steps toward him, so he discouraged it with a blast of fire.

When the smoke cleared, its facial lights were arranged in an annoyed fashion. "I see you're much better at that than he is," it goaded, "but you are not strong enough to seriously hurt me with magic."

Roy pointed the sword at it. "Good thing I have this, then."

The creature leapt with a predatory howl, surprising Roy, but he had just enough time to jerk his sword up to prevent it from hobbling onto him without impaling itself. The horror saw it had failed to strike fast enough, so it had to twist to its side to avoid the blade.

After it landed next to him, Roy understood the meaning behind Leon's words. He had no time to recover any technique he might've learned from college, and instead instinct guided his hand. Paws tried to strike at him, shadows sapping the light as they swiped. He tried to slash at them, but they were always faster, though at least he was successful at blocking them from tearing into his clothes and flesh.

Minutes passed, and the standoff remained in nobody's favor. Then the horror changed like Leon had warned. It swiped one more time with a paw, but mid-strike, as Roy shifted the blade to block the attack, the paw turned into a tangle of vines, shadowy tendrils that flew around the weapon.

Surprised, Roy tried to cut the tendrils, but he was too slow and only managed to trim a few of them. The rest curled around his wrists, forcing him to drop the astral sword, while the other paw transformed and wrapped its tendrils around his neck, choking him but allowing him enough breath to live.

It dragged him in front of Jonathan, who'd been watching the whole thing from the ground. He'd been weakly trying to break his bonds, but now he froze in terror as he recalled what the thing said it would do to his mate.

Roy tried to wrestle free from the vines, but it was a futile effort. It had covered his mouth and muffled his voice, his words unheard by his mate, but his fear felt through their bond, reciprocated by more of the same fear on the other side.

"Now," the mind horror said, "this is an unexpected turn of events. Shall I make you watch as I tear through his guts right now? Or perhaps I should rape him first, like I did to you? Perhaps both, and I'll tear through his guts from the inside!"

To show the dragon what it meant, it formed a massive cock between its legs. Spikes grew around it, causing both their eyes to open wide in horror. Roy tried harder to break free, his muffling growing louder and sounding more terrified, but the creature was too damned strong.

After Roy wasted all his strength struggling, it hurled him to the ground. He hit with enough force to make him momentarily black out, but when his vision refocused he wished he had gotten completely knocked out: the cursed beast was over him now, and it was clearly moving into a position that would allow it to mount, no, destroy him.

Its tentacles started tearing and peeling the human's clothes away, his struggles an exercise in futility. His strength didn't wane for the hope that any delay would help earn him time.

After half a minute, the human was stripped naked, his tattered clothing shredded around his side. The embodiment of his spirit had the same mark of protection on his chest as his mate had, and it too was glowing faintly, echoing the depression and defeat his other half felt.

Roy was just about to stop resisting and surrender to his fate, but then the time he purchased ended up not being garnered in vain. Before the beast could mount him and wreck his body, six pillars of yellow light beamed around it, creating a circle of light which looked like the spokes of a car's tire rim, the mind horror bound inside.

It howled when its first ravaging thrust was prevented by the binding light, its thrashes useless against the powerful spell. "No!" it screamed. Blue light pulsed down the blocks of light, enveloping its ensnared prey. "No! He only got out for five seconds, there's no damned way-"

The light burst, silencing the creature, and then the whole thing was sucked out of the cracked hole in the wall of Jonathan's inner mind.

"Dear god," Roy said with a sigh of relief. He stood up and lumbered over to his fallen sword. He picked it up, and then he walked over to his dragon. He cut the chains with the astral sword, its interdimensional blade making short work of the metal links.

But he only had to cut the ones around his tail, wings, legs, and right arm. His mate's left arm was entirely missing. He dropped the sword after freeing him, and then he dropped onto the floor next to him.

"God," Roy said, pointing to the dragon's missing arm, "will that heal?"

Jonathan tried to feel for the arm with the one he still had, but he only found an empty void. "Leon said that spiritual damage can always heal. But it's entirely gone. I don't know how long it'll take."

"At least we're both still alive," Roy said.

"Leomon came through before it was too late, I take it?"

Roy chuckled at the joke. "Yeah," he said, "that thing was scary."

"I know," Jonathan said, and then he shut his eyes. But the memory could not be reburied so easily. He debated telling his mate about it, but he felt he wasn't ready yet.

He wasn't sure if he ever would be.

For now, he just rolled over onto his side, letting his free wing droop over the human's body. His snout rested on Roy's neck, and he let himself indulge in a little rest. He was fast asleep when his mate's spirit left his mind, retrieved by their wizard mentor.

---

When Roy returned to the real world, he found the shadow thing inside the cage that Leon had erected. It thrashed against the metal frame, desperately trying to break free. Powerful spells seared through the cage, preventing it from making any progress.

Leon was standing by the cage, watching the creature. "Answer my question," he said.

"Only if you release me," the shadow replied.

"Fine," Leon said. He snapped his fingers, and then magical electricity surged through the entire inside area of the cage.

The creature howled, its voice strained with agony. The electricity ceased several seconds later, and then Leon repeated his question.

"S-stop," it said. "I'll answer. The wards. I found a weak point. Some years after The Order disbanded. Only strong ones can pass. I was able. Told no others."

Leon nodded and smiled. "Thank you," he said.

"Release me," it said again, its voice raspy.

"So be it," the lion replied. He snapped his fingers, and then more of the electricity sparked inside the cage.

The creature wasn't human, but that didn't make its death screams any less terrifying to hear. Roy thought he might've even felt sorry for it if it hadn't tried to kill his mate and him.

The intensity of the lightning-in-a-box reached a climax, and then it stopped, leaving nothing left inside the cage. The shadow was gone, never to feed on anyone ever again.

Between not sleeping for an entire day and the mental exhaustion from traveling into his mate's mental plane, Roy fell asleep shortly after he was sure the mind horror had been completely obliterated. The last thing he saw was Leon's worried face watching over Jonathan's resting body, the dragon sleeping inside a magic circle that he guessed extracted the creature from his mind.

When Roy thumped back onto the floor snoozing, the lion couldn't help but smile. His apprentices were safe.

However, there was a problem he needed to fix sooner rather than later. He'd put it off for so long, but there was no excuse now with the gates in California opening since the defeat of the necromancer that had been blocking them. He needed to call a friend to fix the ward network in southern California before his duct-tape repairs failed catastrophically.

Leon left the room he'd used for performing powerful magical rituals and went into his living room. It felt less flooded with magical energy, but his furs still tingled from the power that lingered through his house. It was a good source of fuel for more powerful spells like the ones he had to use to capture the mind horror, but it made his home rather irksome to actually live in.

Nevertheless, he was too tired from the spells to drive back to his gun store to nap. He sat down on his couch and decided to call his friend when he woke up. The Order's old ward network was legendary in its perseverance, but it still needed maintenance. The network had been built as a first defense firewall to keep maleficent magical creatures like the mind horror from passing over to the mortal world, and he had maintained the network in California since the disbandment of The Order over a decade ago. The wards were complex, however, and he didn't know how to deal with the more fundamental parts of the runes and spellwork that made them work. Instead, he'd been applying band-aid fixes that seemed to have been working fine until today.

The lion sighed and pulled out the recliner on the couch. He knew another former Highguard that could fix it, but he lived on another continent across the seas. The necromancer's power that had been disrupting teleportation into the Golden State had faded enough to open a gate as close as Fresno, so he'd have to prepare to pick him up whenever he was ready to gate over.

"Rylin," he muttered, thinking about the gryphon mage. "Been almost a year. Too long."

Leon let out one last purr before succumbing to his nap, his loins stirring slightly at the thought of seeing his old friend again.